


this is not your destruction

by howlling



Series: Destruction 'Verse [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Ambiguous Relationships, BAMF Rogue One Crew, But Only A Sith Deals in Absolutes, Crack Treated Seriously, Eventual Fix-It, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Happy Ending, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Kylo Ren Redemption, M/M, Misuse of the Force, Multi, Psychological Torture, Rogue One Spoilers, Supreme Leader Snoke is a Bag of Dicks, The Crew of Rogue One get Winter Soldiered into the Knights of Ren, The Dark Side of the Force, Things Are Going To Be Okay, We All Know This Theory Isn't True
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-09-20 05:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlling/pseuds/howlling
Summary: this is your birth“What are they?” asks the boy who used to be Ben, but isn’t anymore.He watches the bodies float in the nearly opaque liquid. He can’t see much, the occupants faces are largely obscured by breathing apparatuses, but he can tell they have their eyes closed. They look almost peaceful.“They are a gift.” Snoke replies in that rumbling, succinct voice of gravel and ash. “For you.”They are the Knights of Ren and they are his.This is truthA "The Knights of Ren are the Rogue One Crew" story





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> Jumping on the crew of Rogue One are the Knights of Ren bandwagon. Star Wars is a bit of an intimidating fandom to write for, so hopefully it's up to snuff! 
> 
> Thanks to PJ, who endured me shouting at her multiple times "THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A ONE SHOT" (spoiler alert: it's not a one shot)
> 
> For those that may find Snoke's process of breaking into the minds of the Rogue One crew triggering please feel free to skip down to "The droid is almost unrepairable, ..."

_i think we deserve_

_a soft epilogue, my love_

**

(At first there is only darkness and then there is only pain)

She doesn’t know where she is or who is holding her. She doesn’t know how they got off that Force forsaken beach, how they are alive. All she knows is that she’s been separated from the others. 

He comes to her cell first, studies her in a way that makes her skin crawl and sweat break out down her back. Then with a swiftness that pulls the breath from her lungs, he attacks her mind. She’s caught off guard, but fights him tooth and nail, using any and every trick she knows to keep him out. 

(It won’t be enough)

Snoke is partly impressed by her fortitude, all the others he’s experimented with broke under his Force pressure by this point, but she still fights with the desperation of a wild thing. She screams herself hoarse, her eyes burning like ignited kyber crystals. Snoke discovers pain coupled with the brutal onslaught on her mental shields is what makes her finally weaken and break. He floods through her mind, burning, boiling. He purges her of everything that makes her Jyn Erso again and again and fashions her into something else.

She doesn’t know where she is and she doesn’t know how she got there. She has no name. She is alone.

**

Snoke begins on the next one, prepared for the long drawn out resistance his compatriot offered. Hoping to once again catch his victim off guard, Snoke bursts forward with the Force gathered powerfully behind him, but the man’s mental shields crumple like flimsiplast.

Snoke finds the way ahead swept clean as if cleared for him. Curious. Someone or something ravaged through this one’s mind, leaving him shattered and strewn about, any natural defense utterly pathetic, nearly useless. 

(- pilot, I’m the _pilot_ )

Snoke’s own invasion has only added to the damage. He must proceed much more carefully with this one or the end result may not even be functional. That just wouldn’t do. Not after he’s gone to such effort. Now if only Snoke could make the man stop screaming. 

**

“What is your name?” Snoke asks, and blood bubbles from the rebel’s mouth. He looks up at Snoke, who stands over him looming and desiccated, and bears his teeth.

“My name is Cassian.” he spits, crimson flecking the front of Snoke’s robes. Snoke doesn’t sigh, but there’s something vaguely irritated in his carefully drawn breath. The man screams when Force Lightning rips through his body, unprepared for the simultaneous assault on his mind. 

Snoke learned with the first one that a double assault works best. He tears through the rebel’s mind, seeking, destroying. The man falls limp, the only sound in the cell is his harsh breathing. 

“What is your name?” Snoke asks again. 

The man’s eyes are fogged with confusion. “I -” he starts, falters and stops. 

(What is his name?)

“You are the Spy.” Snoke tells him, achingly gentle. 

“I - I am the Spy.” he repeats, his brain hazy with Force suggestion. Then Snoke electrocutes the man again. 

**

Almost buoyant with his successes, three hollowed out and subservient minds ready to be constructed into whatever he wishes, Snoke nearly discards the next one. It’s defective, blind.

The other three must sense the direction of his thoughts. Something violent and cognizant claws to the surface and he has to spend three more weeks reconditioning them before he can return. Still, the other’s intensive response has given him pause. 

Blinded though the man may be, his connection to the Force is wide. Snoke reasons that he could be useful in the end. 

Snoke begins bombarding the man’s mind and body and he holds out nearly as long as the first. This one is more crafty, hiding pieces of himself and ferreting them away in the catacombs of his thoughts, using the Force to aid him. 

(he is one with the Force and the Force is with him)

Snoke doesn’t bother tracking down the fragments and instead crushes down, pulverizing into dust and ash until there’s nothing but echoes and screams. 

**

The last one is almost easy at this point, the method further refined and practiced. There is only the typical resistance, a heavy bulwark surrounding their mind, something Snoke has learned to circumvent with ease. And there is screaming, but there is always screaming. 

(This is truth)

**

The droid is almost unrepairable, but there’s something that simmers, hot and dangerous in the Knights when Snoke mentions leaving it behind. They are stronger together now, an unforeseen complication. Snoke will have to keep that in mind for any future endeavors. Keeping them together makes them strong, yes, but it also keeps them manageable and it’s easier than trying to constantly reprogram them. For now, Snoke concedes and allows the Droid. Besides, he can use this to his advantage. 

(They refuse to be separated)

**

Snoke takes them and rips them open wide until they are not five things, but one - one howling, screaming thing. They were not born with the Force in their blood like the Jedi of old, but this is hardly an obstacle for a Lord of the Sith. He exposes them to the Force, raw and unshielded, drowns them in the dark side until they are steeped in it, a part of it, an awful abscess of gnashing teeth and putrescent hatred.

(With the Force, all things are possible)

Snoke elevates them and trains them in the ways of the Force and of the dark side and they take to it like a sponge to water, their empty little minds filled with his teachings. Then they are complete. 

Snoke masks and muzzles them, impressing in their clay-soft minds the same regulations that govern the stormtroopers, that they are never to remove their helmets without permission. 

And then he sets them loose. 

The devastation they wreak in his name and in the name of the First Order is unparalleled and incomparable. Snoke thinks it’s breathtaking. However, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like with a natural, full blooded Force user under his sway, molded in his image. He thinks of all the ways he could ameliorate the process, the mistakes he could avoid, how this could be an improvement upon the prototype. 

He would start young, as young as possible, better to mold a mind as it forms than have to break and destroy what is there. He would choose someone strong in the Force so there would be no need to synthesize the ability. Someone with few or underdeveloped connections. Yes, such a person would be perfect for his designs. 

So he begins to plan. 

**

“What are they?” asks the boy who used to be Ben, but isn’t anymore. 

He watches the bodies float in the nearly opaque liquid. He can’t see much, the occupants faces are largely obscured by breathing apparatuses, but he can tell they have their eyes closed. They look almost peaceful.

“They are a gift.” Snoke replies in that rumbling, succinct voice of gravel and ash. “For you.”

Kylo tries not to show how pleased he is at his Supreme Leader’s words, his cheeks flushed with praise. He looks over at the final tank, where a droid waits, unmoving. 

“And the droid?” Kylo asks. It’s an imperial unit, slightly outdated, standing silently on guard at the end of the row. Its gaze never wavers from where they stand. 

Snoke’s lips thin. “This elite unit comes as a set.” he explains. “They become...unruly when separated. At present, the droid remains with them.” 

Kylo wants to ask about that, but some small self-preservation instinct, some whisper of the Force, tells him it’s better to stay silent. 

To Snoke, his statement is that of a failure; it’s proof he couldn’t hollow them out completely, could not purge them of their connection to one another, but to Kylo - though it will be many, many years before he fully understands it - this sentence is truth. 

Snoke, in all his power and knowledge, could not gain mastery over them, not completely. 

Snoke hopes to rectify this error with the boy at his side whose connections and tethers will be severed from him one at a time.

“They have served me well and now they are yours to command.” Snoke tells Kylo. It’s an exciting prospect to the boy, powerful Force users just like him under his authority. He will be strong and powerful with them by his side. 

“What are their names?” Kylo asks, curious after newly receiving his own.

“They have no names, only designations.” A single word inscribed in the plaque on the front of each of their tanks.

Snoke pauses to consider. “They are the Knights of Ren.” And they are his. 

This is truth. 

**

The next time Kylo meets his elite unit they are standing in line before him, five of them, hooded and masked like him. 

He knows their designations, memorized them at the earliest opportunity with school boyish eagerness. Rogue, Spy, Pilot, Gunner, Seer and the Droid. 

And they are his. 

(This is truth) 

They are, as Snoke says, to get to know each other. Kylo, still just a boy, doesn’t realize that this is the Supreme Leader’s idea of a joke. 

They are not like him. They are powerful, yes, but they are not like him. One cannot get to know them when there is little they know about themselves. Kylo can’t help but feel disappointed.

Whatever, _whoever_ , they were before - it’s gone, burned away. They are caught in some nightmarish place between human and droid, vacant dolls full of empty spaces and the glitchy silences of bad code. 

Kylo doesn’t know through what machinations of the dark side Snoke used to weld these people together, one monstrous creature full of rage and rippling darkness and a despair so deep that he flinches away from it, abysmal and unending. 

(he doesn’t want to find out.) 

Snoke stripped them down to the bone and built them back up into something different and wrong. They hate it as much as they are capable of, they abhor their own existence. It’s a constant fetid sensation in the Force that emanates from them like an open sore, weeping and embittered. 

Snoke made them silent because he couldn’t get them to stop screaming. 

**

Snoke orders them to accompany Kylo to the New Temple. Snoke tells Kylo that to commit fully to the dark side that sacrifices must be made, that the Jedi will never allow people like them to flourish.

Kylo knows this, has been told again and again, but he doesn’t want to, _he doesn’t want to_. 

Snoke’s thin, knobby fingers curl over his willowy shoulder like a talon, the bone nearly warping under the pressure. Snoke digs into soft flesh, digs into soft mind, whispering, icy and sharp. Blood bursts in Kylo’s mouth and there’s a noise, high and piercing. 

Then it’s gone. It’s gone so thoroughly Kylo doesn’t even remember it happened at all. There is nothing but empty space and the rasping sound of his own breathing. 

“You know what must be done, don’t you?” his master asks. 

Kylo knows, he knows. He remembers his mother’s frown, his father’s disappearing back, his uncle’s disapproval. They were holding him back. He is something new and special and they want to destroy that, to use it for their own ends. He understands now. He knows what he must do. 

He will fulfill his destiny and no one will stand in his way. 

(The Knights of Ren watch from behind.)

The guardians of the New Temple don’t even realize there’s anything wrong at first, they come to greet him as a student, a lost sheep returned to the fold. They learn the error of that assumption quickly, but too late. 

There’s a small voice shrieking in his head the whole time as his once friends fall under his crimson blade. He is being torn apart, an agony he cannot free himself from.

His Knights never speak, but their bond to one another feels twisted and boiling and awful. He thinks for a moment that they are screaming, too. There is nothing but silence surrounding them. 

His arms ache and there’s blood and viscera splattered against his armor. The Temple is nothing but smoldering wreckage and the dark side is burning in his veins, his birthright. And he _hates_ it, he hates all of it. 

They hate it too. 

 

(Hate leads to suffering)

(Oh gods, how they have suffered)

He tears his helmet off and throws his head back and lets the sound rip from his throat, no longer able to stand it. It echoes in all the newly empty places. His Force presence expands, seeking outward, seeking anything and they are there. 

(The Knights of Ren watch from behind.)

Something between them is cemented that day, though Kylo won’t come to fully understand it for many, many years.

They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. 

**

They still don’t speak, but over time Kylo has come to be grateful for it. They offer him nothing but their constant presence, even if it does feel like a wound flayed open in the Force. Sometimes Kylo thinks he feels the same.

It takes time for him to completely comprehend the limitations that Snoke has forced upon them. The Knights of Ren can’t be spoken to like actual people. 

If Kylo asks “Do you feel inclined to sparring?” he gets nothing but the modulators clicky sound of breathing. 

They do not answer questions, they obey orders. 

So he commands. “Meet me on the mats for sparring.” 

Once Kylo orders a knight to spar after a mission and only to realize afterwards they had a broken arm the whole time.

Kylo goes cold all over. He’s still young, but he has seen sights far worse that the shard of yellow bone, grisly and jagged, peeking up through bruised skin. Yet, it somehow still shakes him. Like many in the First Order he had forgotten that there were people under those masks, human beings. His voice cracks when he orders them to Med Bay, still settling into the lower register it will eventually be, and he tries not to be sick with self anger and shame.

They belong to him and he will take more care with them. 

He learns to coax out their half vocalized words, as they falter and bite off their sentences. He waits patiently when they are unable to articulate, forced into parameters Kylo doesn’t yet grasp.

Kylo learns how carefully he must phrase his requests. He becomes more adept at making a question sound like an order. 

So now, instead, he says, “If you are amiable to sparring, meet me on the mats.”

He wonders if they seem more at ease around him when he finally figures that out, or if he’s reading into things. 

** 

He takes the time to observe them during the missions they serve together and this is what he learns.

Kylo learns in the swamps of Malastare that when he isn't around, the Knights huddle close to each other like puppies, or abandoned droids. He finds them nestled together in a corner of their accommodations, a sea of black cloth broken up by the glint of durasteel visors. The Force hums pleasantly amongst them. 

He does not join them. 

Kylo learns during a operation that someone has royally screwed up that if he has given them no orders they will look to each other for instruction and they are capable of giving it. The Rogue steps up and begins issuing out and managing stormtroopers into something actually useful. 

They complete their objective and Kylo slaughters the incompetent officer responsible for the misinformation that nearly cost them a whole score of troopers to Resistance soldiers. 

Kylo learns in the alleyways and catacombs of Bogden as they commit espionage in the name of the First Order, that the Spy is never far from the Rogue’s side. He will always know far more than he should, anything and everything, always listening when people overlook him. 

It’s only because of the Spy’s contacts and a backwater bar brawl that they get out alive. 

Kylo learns that the Pilot can maneuver the clunkiest ship in the most dire of straits like it’s a streamlined fighter, dodging through the air like a catchhawk even in spite of the Umbarian fog, but he has shaky hands with a blaster. 

The Pilot gives a whoop of excitement after a particularly difficult maneuver that had the other shuttle’s passengers digging their heels in and grabbing at whatever surface they could to try and hold on. It’s the first time Kylo has ever heard an expression from one of the Knights that isn’t in response to a direct order. 

Kylo learns that the Seer has the strongest connection with the Force out of all of the Knights as they sit among the trees of Devaron in a temple that has fallen far into ruin, and Gunner knows where this leaves the Seer vulnerable. You will never see one without the other.

They sit there for a long time, stone rubble littered around them, listening to the distant susurrous of the Force whispering through the forests' branches. The Gunner watches the tree line and sits at their backs, blaster held steady. 

Kylo learns that the Droid might seem outdated, but underneath its metal exterior lies some of the most advanced robotics in the First Order. 

And that when it tells you that a planet is unfriendly it is _really_ best to listen to it. 

Kylo learns that the Knights will become disobedient, dangerous even, if kept from each other purposefully, but will endure brief separation for the sake of a mission. It makes them irritable and distempered, but they’ll do it if they have to, just not for long. 

The Rogue becomes snappish and somehow more withdrawn even though she doesn’t speak anyway. The Pilot becomes more jittery and unfocused, their stretched connection only exacerbating the problem. The Gunner grows increasingly violent. Finally, they are reunited with the other two and Kylo breathes a sigh of relief. 

Kylo learns that when they are not being utilized, which is more often that he likes, that Snoke places the Knights in cryo, frost dotting their eyelashes. It makes them seem ageless, a carefully constructed terror of the First Order that will never fade. 

Soon Kylo is taller than the Gunner when he once was of a height with the Rogue. The Knights remain unchanged. They do not grow, they do not age, they do not speak.

He wonders if he’s older than they are now. 

Kylo learns that they are slaves, but he doesn’t come to fully understand that for many, many years. 

(This is truth) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! Next chapter should be up around this time next week.


	2. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a movin' and I blatantly alter the boy who cried wolf but star warsified

Kylo wonders some nights if this is as close as he will get to experiencing what it’s like having padawans, apprentices. The Knights of Ren have his name, are of his lineage in a way, and it gives him this odd feeling of weight and responsibility. 

Despite the fact they are probably older than him and infinitely more threatening. 

He becomes fond of them, over the years they serve together, the way they trail after him like extremely lethal ducklings, like shadows.

That and they _really_ creep Hux out, so, whenever the red head is on duty, Kylo Ren makes doubly sure he is never without one or two of his Knights to put the uptight man on edge. Sometimes Kylo thinks the Knights enjoy it a little too, a brief spark brightening their bond, but it’s nearly impossible to tell. 

**

They have just completed a mission - the subdual and capture of the capital city on a moon called Ondos. It is in a useful location with natural resources and there are always more children needed to fill out stormtrooper ranks. 

Any zealous Resistance Fighters were quickly dealt with and the more shrewd have no doubt left to report that the city had fallen to the First Order. 

They sit amongst the smoldering city waiting for retrieval. Rogue has sustained damage to her mask and the dark duraplast has split open like a beetle carapace, revealing dark brown hair and a piercing green eye. It’s the most Kylo has ever seen of her. 

It’s disconcerting. She’s in no violation of regulation, the damage is incidental, but he’s grown more used to their helmets than the idea of the faces behind them. 

“Do you know the story of the nerfherder and the wolf-cats?” he asks, musing, thinking aloud as he does sometimes with them, not expecting any response. He’s surprised when he gets it.

“We do.” 

Her helmet is broken, so it’s her voice, her real voice, unmodulated and unaltered, that he hears. He watches her for a long time, she says nothing further. She never looks away. 

He’d asked a question and she’s answered it, a _question_ , not a command. Has she’s found some technicality in the defect Snoke’s imposed on her? Or is it something that gradually fades, something they heal? He doesn’t think he’ll ever know. 

The Rogue reminds him much of the wolf-cats, clever creatures, brazen and wild. He wonders just how much was taken from her, she has no name, no home, no history, and yet - she somehow knows this story. 

The Spy sits along her side, bracing them both and speaks, the modulator cracks and sputters. “In the valley of the great mountains of Alderaan there once lived a scruffy nerfherder who hated herding nerfs. Sitting on the hillside alone he became bored. To amuse himself with a loud voice he called out ‘the wolf-cats! The wolf-cats are coming to eat up all the nerfs!’”

Kylo is glad his mask remains intact so that he doesn’t have to worry about hiding his expression. He is sure it is far too nostalgic. They tell the story a little differently than he remembers, but it’s similar enough to count. 

The Gunner and the Seer sit a little ways off and the Pilot is between them. The Gunner continues the tale in his slow, rich voice.

“The villagers come running to help the nerfherder drive the creatures away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf-cats at all. The foolish nerfherder laughed at the sight of their angry faces. The villagers warned him not to call for help when there was no danger.”

“But from the forest the wolf-cats watched.” the Rogue says quietly, steadily. A single human tone in a sea of artificial ones.

The Pilot speaks the next part, his hands twitching. “Later, the nerfherder again cried out that the wolf-cats were after the nerfs and once more the villagers came running to his aid. When they saw no danger, they scolded him again, saying not to call for help when there were no wolf-cats.” 

“But from the forest the wolf-cats watched.” the Rogue repeats the refrain. 

The Seer hums and takes up the mantle of storyteller. “The nerfherder only grinned in his fun. But the wolf-cats had been watching from the forest and they did not hide as they came upon the nerfs and their herder. The nerfherder saw them prowling about his flock. Frightened, he leapt to his feet and shouted as loud as he could, ‘Wolf-cats! Wolf-cats!’ But the villagers didn’t come.” 

The Rogue picks up the story again. “The wolf-cat grinned a grin with too many teeth, full of rage and empty spaces and the dark of a moonless night and said to the nerfherder, ‘No one believes a liar, even when he is telling the truth.’ And they ate the nerfherder and all his nerfs.”

It’s the most he’s ever heard them speak before, but as the story comes to its conclusion, calmness settles around their campfire. Kylo finds it strangely peaceful, the Force hums pleasantly amongst them. 

The Droid is their solitary sentry, standing and sending out a retrieval signal to the First Order. 

“My mother used to tell it to me.” he says before the words can be stopped. He thinks the Rogue smiles at that and the Knight’s don’t feel like a wound scraped raw next to him, they feel of healing and peace. 

Snoke requests the presence of his Knights the moment they are back on base and they have no choice but to go. They return and its weeks until he hears them speak again and then it’s slowly, as if it causes them pain. 

Kylo learned long ago that when Snoke collects and returns them they are always more silent and broken than before. 

**

As his own lessons with Snoke continue to progress, Kylo starts to look at the Knights and wonder. Did he do this to you, too? Did he dig into you and scoop everything out until there was nothing left? Did the screams inside their heads echo from all the newly empty spaces?

(Did the screaming ever stop?)

He tries to recall the warm weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder, but there’s nothing there except darkness and resentment. Sometimes he doesn’t remember his mother’s face, just the blank holes of a skull and a mouth pulled tight with bitterness. 

When he’s alone, right before he falls asleep, he wonders how many things he doesn’t remember he’s forgotten. 

He wonders if one day he’ll just be another Knight like the others and someone younger and stronger in the Force will be given command over him.

**

It’s after one particularly rough lesson Snoke has imparted upon him that his Knights find him. He’s in his private rooms without his helmet, struggling to breathe through the agony and can’t hear anything over the shrieking in his mind, torn and oozing. 

He feels their presence in the Force, near him, and when he’s come back to himself enough he registers that they’re actually there. More than that, they are _speaking_ , something they hadn’t dared to do since they told stories in the rubble across a campfire of burning debris. 

None of them have their masks on and he closes his eyes shut tight the instant that he recognizes it. Kylo doesn’t know if he admires their bravery or hates it. 

 

(Hate leads to suffering)

(they are so tired of suffering)

Snoke will reach into his skull and scoop this moment out and then punish the Knights. Kylo keeps his eyes closed. He will not betray them. 

“We are one with the Force.” the Rogue says in a murmur. 

“And the Force is with us.” the others reply in the same tone. The Seer’s staff taps the ground softly, rhythmically. 

“We are one with the Force.” the Rogue says again. 

“And the Force is with us.” they reply. 

It’s not exactly soothing, the sensation that sweeps over him. It’s a bit like a military blanket, scratchy and unfamiliar, but it’s warm and heavy.

Sometimes he forgets that the Knights are proficient Force users as well, trained by Snoke himself, even though they don’t all wield lightsabers. He understands now. This is how they survived Snoke’s treatment, this is the key. 

They were not alone. 

They filled up each other’s empty spaces. If they were not here with him, holding him steady with their presence, their voices, he would have been lost.

“We are one with the Force.” the Rogue says again and this time when they reply, Kylo licks his cracked lips and repeats along with them. 

“And the Force is with us.”

The next time he’s being taught by Snoke, his body still twitching from the aftershocks of Force Lightning, he hears it in the back of his mind, in the shadowy, empty places left behind that Snoke pays no attention to. 

“We are one with the Force.” 

_“And the Force is with us.” he thinks._

**

Kylo makes note of how long it takes the Knights to begin overcoming whatever Snoke has broken in them. He starts seeing the pattern, how many days it takes for them to be able to speak, how many it takes for them to be able to articulate responses. 

He times his questions very carefully. 

“Tell me where you are from.” he says to the Spy. 

The man takes a long time to answer and Kylo can sense the Spy’s frustration through the Force as he searches his own mind and finds nothing. There is no beginning for them, no end. 

“There was light, bright and searing.” the Spy says slowly, as if the words are being dragged through molasses, through broken teeth and bloodied tongue. “Then there was darkness. That is where I am from.” the Spy concludes. 

Kylo thinks about that for a long time. 

“Tell me where you learned to fire a blaster like that.” he asks of the Rogue. 

Her hand spasms around said blaster and the air suddenly becomes sharp with restrained violence. Kylo takes a generous step backwards. 

“I learned with the hands of a child.” she says, and the high whine of a rifle warming up echoes in his ears, the phantom weight of it against his palms. 

And he understands, he does. He remembers the thunder and rattle of cannon fire and being told to hide in the corner where the bed met the wall as soldiers ran past. He remembers his mother showing him how to hold the little blaster with pudgy hands, Luke’s quiet instruction on lightsaber forms when he barely reached his uncle’s waist.

“Tell me where you learned of the Force.” he says to the Seer. The helmet tilts curiously at him and the Knight leans on his staff. His existence in the Force is liquid, sometimes the calm pool, other times a raging torrent. 

The Seer leans back, resting his helmet against the wall he’s settled himself along. Blood dribbles unseen from his nose down his chin. “The Force is everywhere, in everything. I learned of the Force in the dust and in the rain.”

Kylo thinks sometimes that the Seer is cryptic for his own amusement and less as a workaround to whatever Snoke has done to them. 

“Tell me how you met the Seer.” Kylo doesn’t expect much of an answer, the Gunner is more silent and taciturn than the rest. 

Kylo knows these two Knights must have known each other before they came into Snoke’s clutches, if not all of them. But these two are especially close. If the Seer is the river, the Gunner is the rock it flows around. 

The Gunner is silent for a moment before humming. “All is as the Force wills it.” 

Kylo finds that answer rather unhelpful, he won’t come to fully understand the meaning of it for many, many years.

“Tell me what your name is.” he says to the Pilot. 

The Knight’s body begins to shake and tremble, like he’s fighting off some mental enemy. Kylo begins to become alarmed as the reaction only worsens.

“I’m the Pilot.” he gasps as if he’s been submerged under water and has only now broke the surface, lungs heaving, his inhales crackling through the helmet. “I’m the Pilot, please, no, _I’m the Pilot_.” he pleads, high and panicked. He claws at his throat and head, scrabbling against the hard duraplast.

Kylo can’t get the man to stop shaking and has to call the other Knights to aid him. He is shoved away as they crowd in around the Pilot, gentle touches and reassuring words, their presence in the Force pushing in close and calming.

The Spy is curled around the Pilot’s back, the Gunner and the Seer on either side, pressed as tight as they can manage in their full armor. It’s still hours before the Pilot is tranquil, only intermittent shivers disturbing his stillness.

The Rogue walks over to Kylo and says nothing, but she’s bristling with threat. Her rage is wildfire, white hot, burning at the edges of his senses. She stands there, just long enough to make him uncomfortable, _frightened_ , before returning to her compatriot. 

She’s made her point very clearly. Kylo doesn’t ask again. 

The Knights of Ren are his, this is truth - but they were each other’s first and Kylo learns in that moment that if he causes them pain - the Rogue will protect them from harm. Whatever the cost. 

The Droid approaches him, and Kylo does not command an answer from it, it volunteers one. 

“I am programmed to record and submit reports to the Supreme Leader.” it says, its intonation as proper and latently disrespectful as always. It looks at Kylo for a long time, with unblinking, glowing eyes. 

“I understand.” Kylo says at last. With that it swivels and walks away. 

He understands now how Snoke always seems to be aware of when the Knights have begun to function outside his parameters, no matter the distance. He has no doubt that the Knights know that the Droid reports to Snoke, but he thinks on what Snoke first said to him, when he gave him the Knights.

They came as a set.

They would not be separated, and the Supreme Leader twisted that, took advantage of it. They must know of this, they _must_. Yet, they refuse to be separated.

Kylo has come to understand that they are all enslaved to the Supreme Leader in one way or another. 

** 

The Knights of Ren are not with him when the map fragment leading to Luke Skywalker is subsequently found on Jakku and then lost. Snoke has the Knights placed elsewhere. They’re being reconditioned after an _incident_. Kylo remembers the imperial officer trying to crowd against the Rogue to try to put his hands on her. He remembers in one graceful, brutal, motion the Spy slaughtered him and then proceeded to slaughter nearly everyone else. 

Kylo remains silent on the subject. It could have been just as easily him being taught a lesson as he had been only seconds from drawing his saber as well. 

The Knights of Ren are not with him when he digs into the rebel pilot’s mind and scoops out what he needs. He feels an echo of agony through their bond. 

He remembers being on the other side of this -  
_screaming_ -  
Snoke tearing through his mind and taking what he wanted. 

Kylo’s head is ringing with screams. He can’t even tell whose they are anymore. 

The Knights of Ren are not with him so Hux feels safe enough to make snide comments and question his authority. Temper flares hot and furious through him. 

There is no place to put the screaming and the fury and the taste of blood in his mouth and he lashes out with the need to destroy something, _anything_. 

The Knights of Ren are not with him to experience the terror and exhilaration of Starkiller’s attack on the New Republic. 

The agony of billions of voices crying out at once is nearly as loud as the constant noise in his head. And the sudden silence that comes after is almost _euphoric_. The Force froths and twists and Kylo is subsumed by it, and then it quiets, like any screaming thing. 

The Knights of Ren are not with him when he retrieves the girl, both angered and fascinated by her. Without his Knights to act as an anchor, frustration builds up in him, molten and bubbling. He leaves the girl locked away. 

When he reaches for his Knights everything has gone dark and hushed like the deep unawareness of unconsciousness. Or death. He shakes his head, if they were dead he would know, he would have felt it. 

They are the Knights of Ren and they are _his_. 

The Knights of Ren are not with him when his saber spears out the back of his father, but he distantly feels something snap. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Han Solo’s body fall. 

There’s a scream in his head that sounds like the Rogue. For a moment it feels like his clothes are heavy with water and rain is dripping against his skin, in his eyes, and there is only blinding fear and grief and _anguish_ , his father, his _father_ crumpled at his feet - but no, that’s not right. And then the Spy’s voice is in his ear, frantic and strange. “We have to go, _we have to go!_ ”

Yes, he knows that. He looks up and around. Nothing is familiar, he’s standing on landing platform and everything is distorted by pounding rain. He can’t stay here, he has to go. But he - he doesn’t know...where he is. Something like fear prickles down his spine. 

Then the Force vision, or whatever it was, vanishes in burning pain, a bowcaster bolt slicing into his side and he is standing high on a catwalk where we was before and there is no rain. There is screaming, but for once it’s not in his head. 

The Knights of Ren are not with him when he faces off against the desert scavenger and the traitorous stormtrooper in the snow and the ice and the indignity of losing. The sharp pain across his face from his own bloodline’s blade and the groaning of the ground splitting apart. 

And the Knights of Ren are still not there when he wakes up in medical weeks later and that’s when he realizes something is very, very wrong. 

Snoke sneers down at him from his lofty hologram when Kylo is finally well enough to be granted an audience. His questions about his Knights go ignored, dismissed. They feel cut off from him in a way they never have before. 

Hux tells him that the Knights are Snoke’s to do with whatever he wishes, and Kylo knows that Hux believes this to be true. 

But Kylo knows truth. He knows that Snoke, in all his power and knowledge, could not gain mastery over them, not completely. 

He knows that they are the Knights of Ren and they are his.

This is truth.

So Kylo does something he never has before. He goes rogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun Dun DUN
> 
> The Knights of Ren are bad examples when it comes to obedience, they've rubbed off on Kylo more than he realizes. See you next week, lovelies!
> 
> -howlling


	3. chapter three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo makes attempts to find the location of his Knights and Phasma saves the day like a boss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo isn't as good at going rogue as he thinks he is but hopefully you guys enjoy his attempts at doing so

The absence of his Knights aches within Kylo, like a pulled tooth, leaving him morbidly probing the hole it’s left behind in him, in his mind. He wants to fight and tear until everything is broken and bloody around him, reduced to wreckage, but he _can’t_. 

He must act carefully, cautiously. If any of the First Order suspect his allegiances have shifted, he’ll be brought before the Supreme Leader and be burned clean from the inside out until he doesn't remember the Knights at all. Something deep inside tells him that wherever his Knights are, if he is found out, they will surely be killed. Scrapped for a project that requires less maintenance. 

Still, his instincts scream at him that this state of being is wrong, that he is not meant to be alone in his head and _something_ must be done. He cannot remain idle. That innate wrongness digging at him is what prompts his next words, despite the danger. 

“Have there been any transmissions from the Supreme Leader?” Kylo asks, even though Hux is the last person he wants to speak to about this. The man is too smart to be trifled with in the Force and they both know it. As much fun as it would be to try and dig into Hux’s thoughts and find what Kylo wants to know, it would be futility. Hux has a mind like a durasteel trap. It’s what makes him so useful, why he’s often assigned as liaison for Ren and his Knights. 

The two of them stand in front of the viewport on the main deck of the _Finalizer_ with some insignificant planet spinning on below them, the surrounding blackness of space broken up by pinpricks of faraway stars. Hux brings his hands behind his back in a casual parade rest. Kylo can sense smugness and the cold superiority that always drips off of the man next to him and fights to keep his fingers from drifting too near his saber, a tell that Hux is familiar with. He can’t afford to show any weakness here.

“Pertaining to you?” Hux questions with arch rhetoric, turning towards Kylo. The harsh lighting bleaches him of color, making his skin pallid and his eyes pale, with the exception of his bright hair tucked neatly under his cap. “Hmm. No.” 

Kylo determines with gritted teeth not to let the man worm his way underneath his skin. He imagines punching Hux in his stupid, weaselly face and feels marginally better. “Pertaining to the Knights of Ren.” Kylo clarifies calmly. 

He tries to channel the Spy, the soft reasonableness that always managed to extract information with ease. Kylo never had the patience for it, typically leaving such things to the Spy or occasionally the Seer, who, with his cheerful openness backed up with the Gunner's intimidating presence, often had people spilling details to them with little hesitation. Even the Pilot with his oddly endearing earnestness was better at interrogation than Kylo was.

“Impatient to have your pets once more underfoot?” Hux returns scathingly. The light falls on his sharp cheekbones, casting his eyes in darkness, like a skull or the mask of a stormtrooper. The smugness dials up a notch, and it feels like biting cold rain, stinging against Kylo’s senses. 

Kylo is finding it difficult to breathe normally and his vision tints red. They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. “Have there been transmissions,” Kylo says with clenched jaw, “Or _not_?” 

Hux waits overly long before replying, inordinately enjoying dangling bait in front of Kylo. “No, there haven’t.” and he relishes the slight sag in Kylo’s shoulders. “I don’t understand why you want them back so badly, it’s not like they were much good for anything.” Hux says, even while knowing this is patently untrue. 

The Knights of Ren were a destructive force that rivaled Starkiller Base all wrapped up in five little ordinary bodies of skin and bone, crafted by the Supreme Leader himself. Hux wasn’t jealous, he _wasn’t_. But it irritates Kylo to no end when his Knights are spoken of disparagingly, so Hux takes every opportunity to do so. 

That and the Knights really freak him out, with their blank masks and how they seem to cancel out any noise around them, sucking it in like wandering black holes, hushed and gaping and endless. Hux fights off a shudder.

Kylo frowns, hidden behind his helmet. If he can’t get the information he needs out of Hux, can’t trip him up, he’ll have to try his luck with the computer systems. 

**

If only breaking into the system would have been as easy as breaking into the room had been. 

Kylo has sequestered himself away on a lower floor, deep in the bowels of the ship. He doesn’t have the clearance to be here, let alone the admittance to the archival drives housed inside. The blinking green lights and the large datascreen are the only light in the tiny room, casting eerie shadows that flicker on the edges of his vision. 

He’s pried a panel open and wires spilled out like entrails on the floor around him in his endeavor to get the information that he desires, but to no avail. No amount of rewiring or rerouting had yielded results. Neither had his various password or coding attempts been successful. 

Kylo fights against his frustration, battling down the instinct to rage and break. It would do him no good here. If he lost his temper and destroyed the machinery, it would only lead to an inquiry as to why he was there in the first place. He couldn’t afford such a risk.

He’s relied too heavily on his Knights, their unavailability have brought Kylo’s inadequacies to light, throwing them in his face. With the Droid he would have had the information in a moment and both the Spy and the Pilot were better slicers than him, they could bypass the programming. But the Spy and the Pilot are not here. None of them are. That’s the whole point. 

He takes a careful breath and tries once more to subvert the firewall, but the access denied message pops up again. Kylo jolts upright and nearly pulls his saber, anger coursing in his veins. 

The door hisses open at the far end. Kylo freezes and looks up. A First Order officer comes to a halt at seeing him. There’s a moment of total silence as they both stare at each other. The man swallows down his trepidation before he bolsters himself and speaks, “Sir, you are not authorized to be in here.” he states firmly, even though Kylo can feel his fear, bitter and sharp, like the taste of citrus after cleaning one’s teeth. 

Kylo reaches a hand out and calls the Force, bringing it down to coalesce around the man’s throat, malevolent and constricting. The officer begins to tug ineffectually at his collar, which is suddenly much tighter than before, with gloved fingers. He is just beginning to panic when Kylo drags him forward and they are nose to mask. The man’s panicked breath fogs across Kylo’s visor.

“Not authorized?” Kylo asks slowly, deadly. The dark side of the force is whispering in his ears, _do it_. He could bring to bear the Force against the soft flexible flesh of the man’s throat, closing and cutting off the air, or a simple twist or crunch and the end would be even swifter.

 _It would be so easy_ , he thinks.

This is truth. 

What about the body? a voice in his head that sounds like the Spy asks. 

How long until he’s reported missing? says the Rogue.

Until people ask questions? reasons the Seer. 

Kylo scowls, though no one can see it. Whether it’s his actual Knights whispering in the back of his mind or his own imaginings of what they would no doubt say to him, the advice is sound. Instead of snapping the officer’s neck, Kylo reaches for his mind, gathering influence around him. It’s not a trick he’s very good at, convincing others using the Force had always been something his Knights were more proficient at, the Rogue, the Seer. Still, he tries. 

“You never saw me.” Kylo says slowly, weaving the suggestion into the words. He imagines the Seer’s gentle tones, the crafty way the Rogue would apply the Force to her words.

“I - I’m sorry?” the officer replies, but his eyes are blurry and confused. 

“You never saw me.” Kylo repeats, straining to exhibit the restraint and skill needed for this to work. 

“I never saw you.” the officer mimics, body going slack with relaxation. Kylo nearly breathes a sigh of relief himself, but he can’t lose his focus, a waver in concentration could render the whole effort pointless.

“I was never here.” Kylo impresses upon the man. It is vital no one witnessess his presence here. 

“You were never here.” he repeats dutifully. 

“Very good.” Kylo says. 

“Very good.” the man replies, pleased. 

Kylo releases the officer who wobbles a bit and then steadies on his feet. He turns and walks out the door without a second look. Kylo, knowing he wouldn’t be able to repeat the trick, takes his chance to make a swift exit himself. 

The officer nearly runs into Phasma down the corridor. “Officer Darik, what are you doing?” she asks, seeing as she sent him to retrieve mission data and he shouldn’t be just out wandering the halls. 

He looks at her with bleary eyes and blinks. “I never saw him. He was never here.” he tells her, a dopey smile on his face. 

Phasma doesn’t even need to ask who he’s talking about, she isn’t an idiot. 

“Kylo.” she growls. 

“Very good!” Officer Darik says, seemingly delighted. 

Phasma pushes by him and turns into the junction only to see the heel of a boot and the fluttering edge of a black cape disappear around a corner at the far end of the corridor. She grits her teeth together. If he isn’t more careful that boy is going to get himself killed.

Something must be done. Phasma hears her old mentor’s words ring in her ears about when you want things done right and realizes she’s going to have to do it herself, Force above. 

**

In the end, it’s Phasma who makes the whole plan come together. Kylo had thought himself subtle in his inquiries, in his attempts at slicing through First Order firewalls, but Phasma is of the opinion he’s about as subtle as a Star Destroyer. 

She’d pulled him aside with a firm enough tone that he heeded, fearing discovery. He startled when she informed him that she would aid him in his endeavor, swiftly leading him into an office with a data console. He watched, slightly in fear, slightly in awe, as she began the process of narrowing down candidates until she reached the information he needed. 

When Kylo asks her why she is aiding him she is silent for a long while, but his Knights have taught him patience and so he waits her out. 

“They are your Knights, and your duty is to them.” she says after an inordinate amount of silence. 

At first, her explanation seems underwhelming, but he’s come to know what she means. 

They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. This is truth. And this is something it has taken Phasma many, many years to fully understand herself. Your duty is to your soldiers. 

“I can’t tell you where they are.” she says, voice carefully monotone. 

Kylo’s fist creaks and the Force roils under his skin. 

He can’t tell under her helmet, but he would swear in that moment she is leveling him with a most unimpressed look, eyebrow raised. “Because I don’t know.” 

Kylo takes a breath and tells himself he will not lose his temper. He will _not_. 

“But I can tell you who does.” she finishes. Her helmet twists in his direction and she hesitates, knows she’s committing some form of treason. But this is not the first time she’s done this, sat in front of a datascreen and relayed information to a man who had once had loyalty to the First Order in his blood, and she thinks it won’t be the last. Some part of her is terrified by that.

“There is no going back after this, you know.” she tells Kylo in the stern voice of a commander. He smiles. It reminds him of his mother. 

“I know.” he replies. 

Phasma nods and a few succinct keystrokes later there is a series of datafiles displayed on screen. A man and a name. Kylo studies them with feverish eyes, twitching fingers. 

“And you’re sure?” he asks, still staring at the screen, unblinking. 

“Yes, sir.” she answers. “Start with him and then work up the chain of command.” she advises. 

Once he has the information memorized, he turns to face her. Two masks staring back at one another that everyone else had forgotten had people underneath them. “I won’t forget this.” he promises lowly. 

She remains silent, unsure if this is a threat or a reassurance. “Don’t forget to deactivate the trackers in the ship before you leave.” is what she settles on and then she offers him a sharp parting salute. 

Kylo’s mouth twitches into a smile for a moment before he’s dipping into a bow, like the Jedi of old, surprising her once more. Then he’s sweeping out of the room, striding powerfully forward, troopers and technicians swerving to avoid him. 

The force buzzes in his veins, a lashing, wild thing, ready to be set loose. Kylo grins, sharp and feral - the thrill of the hunt quickening his feet. 

**

Kylo finds the man coming back from the mess hall, a small yellow stain on his shirt front, hastily wiped, but to little effect. He’s pudgier than his datafile photo, dark hair just starting to thin. A rather underwhelming individual for all of his supposed importance. Indignation and outrage burns through Kylo. This is the man keeping him from his Knights? Kylo is almost insulted.

Kylo tries to tamp down on accidentally broadcasting through the Force, but enough must get through that the General stops and blinks, unknown instincts warning him of danger. Kylo steps forward out of the shadows and the man startles before forcing himself to relax. Kylo’s tooth filled grin is hidden behind his mask. 

“General Corcer.” Kylo intones.

“Sir.” the man responds, unsure if he should be frightened or superior. Well, he’d know soon enough. “Can I help you with something?” 

“In fact, you can, General. Walk with me.” Kylo takes intentionally long strides so that the shorter General must half-jog to keep up, a tactic he’s stolen from the Gunner when the Seer is pestering him. Something the Seer somehow manages to do without speaking a word. 

It keeps the General distracted enough that he doesn’t ask where they are going, a fatal mistake. “Turn here.” Kylo says and the General, swept up in Kylo’s momentum, does so without thought. Until Kylo seals the door behind them. They’re in a office, empty, nondescript, one of a hundred similar rooms on this floor.

“Sir, what are we doing here?” Corcer asks nervously, but it’s too late for that.

“We? _You_ , General Corcer, are going to answer some questions of mine.” Kylo’s says, his voice nonchalant. The air rumbles with the Force, writhing at Kylo’s fingertips.

Corcer started to sweat. “Questions, sir?” He watches with wary eyes as Kylo prowls forward, inhumanly graceful, the promise of calamity practically oozing from him.

“Sit.” Kylo commands, and with a flick of his fingers drags a chair forward and pushes Corcer down into it. Corcer cries out as the inescapable pressure cracks one of his hips. “Now,” Kylo growls, “let’s start with _where are my Knights?_ ” 

**

It takes shredding through the minds of two more generals and an admiral after Corcer before Kylo has the location of his Knights. But he finally has it. 

He leaves the men gibbering and useless on the floor, locking the office he trapped them in behind him. He leaves with a whirl of his cloak and screaming ringing in his ears, inside his skull. 

_Ttaz_. 

It repeats again and again in his mind, echoing in the newly empty spaces. Ttaz, Ttaz, Ttaz, Ttaz, Ttaz. 

It’s a distant planet, and so he must move quickly before his absence, or anyone else’s, is noticed.

The bond he has with his Knights is no longer silent, now that he knows where they are. His mind stretches out as far as it can to try connect with them, but when it does, it’s an odd keening noise - like a misaligned comm signal, broken static and half garbled pitches. Kylo goes cold. 

Distracted, he nearly runs into Hux who offers a cutting comment on Kylo’s harried state. Kylo doesn’t have time to spare in order to banter with him and brushes by impatiently. 

Hux stares at Kylo’s retreating form in puzzlement. Kylo and he are naturally antagonistic, but it is not often he is so completely ignored. He shakes off the bone deep chill that had come upon him as Kylo passed by and tries to get back to his own business, goosebumps prickling down his spine. 

Kylo hardly notices Hux. He must get to his Knights, nothing else matters. This is truth. 

His control has gone beyond slipping, it’s shattered like too thin transparisteel. He proceeds without delay to the hangar bay with the intent to sabotage and steal a ship. His dread and desperation emanate off of him and the trooper at the door falls to his knees, gasping, shivering.

There are two airship mechanics working nearby that drop to the ground, bleeding from the nose, struggling to draw breath as Kylo’s unhinged power and fear flash freezes through them. He pays them no attention. He spots a ship that meets the qualifications Phasma laid out for him. A supply shuttle, for cargo or personnel, unremarkable. Perfect.

He removes the tracking devices, scrubs the computer of log data, a feat even he can manage, and sets to launch. The shuttle judders as it lifts off, and then he’s soaring out of the _Finalizer’s_ bay and towards his Knights.

He will not be separated from them. Nothing will stand in his way. He is coming for them and he will be with them soon. He knows it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up, finding his knights and busting them out!


	4. chapter four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo will find his Knights, regardless of the cost. Things don't go as expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Sorry this chapter is a few days late, moving houses over the weekend tends to make life a bit hectic. Hopefully a little longer of a chapter makes up for the delay. (is it biased if I say this chapter might be my favorite?)

Kylo is alone when he reaches Ttaz. 

It’s a small, dark planet on the Outer Rim with cold, foggy winters and markedly hotter summers. Its singularly distinctive feature is the rock formations, hexagonal stone pillars forming cliffs and valleys as they crumble and fall away into a black, thrashing sea. 

Its only point of interest to Kylo is the First Order’s scientific outpost called Blackfall nestled in the southeastern Postpile. Blackfall is a small complex, tucked away on a pointless backwater planet in the distant reaches of civilization. 

There’s only a skeleton crew to run the base and monitor the harried scientists and overworked technicians, supported and guarded by a small squadron of stormtroopers. 

It is where his Knights will be. 

Kylo is alone as he bluffs his way through the landing procedure, relaying all the proper codes and transmissions of a routine supply run. Kylo lies like the Spy and rattles off memorized access codes like the Pilot. 

He is given permission to land by an air traffic controller that very poorly disguises his yawn. Kylo lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

Kylo is alone when he lands his small, stolen ship in the very early hours of the morning, planetside time, the sky still dark. 

Kylo uses the watchman patrol times to his advantage like the Rogue does, utilizing the cover of darkness in the very early hours of morning. 

The moment he touches dirt he can feel that his Knights are near, somewhere. It won’t be too hard to find them, already their presence is calling out to him. They are not with him, but they will be, soon. He will not be alone. 

Kylo sneaks in through the hanger, trying to avoid any personnel that might have been sent to meet him. 

Kylo makes his footsteps as silent as he can in the Force like the Seer does, centering himself and conserving energy even while on the move. 

He’s traversing steadily closer to his Knights, the pull of their bond ever present and growing steadily louder, tugging harder. It makes him slightly dizzy, almost reckless with the promise of their reunion. 

Kylo is alone and the buzz of their bond, disconnected but so, so close is distracted, consuming. He’s caught up in getting nearer that he almost doesn't hear the footsteps approaching in time. At the last second he squeezes himself behind a door as the stormtroopers march by. He breathes a sigh of relief and resumes his path. He’s almost there, he feels it.

And then he goes cold, down to his bones. 

Kylo is alone when Snoke is informed of what he has done. He isn’t sure whether they noticed the supply ship missing or his absence back on the _Finalizer_ , or if it was his arrival on Blackfall that gave him away. 

The Supreme Leader’s Force presence is massive and looming and the sensation of it is as if a mountain has turned its attention to you. He remembers the impression of Snoke’s undivided focus; crushing and unrelenting, like drowning, like suffocating, from when he was a boy and it sends blind panic jolting down his spine. 

Kylo wraps himself in the shadows of the Force as much as he can, hiding, but there is no point. Snoke knows where he is at. Alarms pierce the air with shrill wailing only minutes after. The alarm continues to shriek, increasing and discordant. 

He’s halfway down the corridor when a group of troopers turn the corner and spot him. There’s a bit of shouting, various “There he is!” and “get him!”s and they take aim. Kylo is faster. His saber is out and burning before they’ve even brought their blasters up. He strides forward and they open fire. The tender, newly grown skin of his side pulls and tears slightly as he swings his blade to deflect a shot to his head. 

The first trooper takes a refracted blaster bolt to the throat, dying with a gurgle and the smell of charred flesh. By then Kylo is upon them. He catches the next in the side, bisecting him and slicing another’s arm on the upswing that causes a shrill scream. He cuts the next few at the knees, delivering a swift stab in the chest to finish it. 

One further back tries to charge at him with a roar, nearly startling Kylo with the sudden brashness. He just barely brings his lightsaber up in time for the stormtrooper to impale himself on it with his own forward momentum. Kylo yanks it free to sloppily slash at the smaller trooper trying to take advantage of her teammate’s demise, finding the vulnerability between chestplate and helmet, right at the throat.

It’s a wound that not even the cauterizing properties of a lightsaber can make bloodless and Kylo doesn’t quite turn away in time, hot blood sprays everywhere, the walls, the floor, and his visor, blinding him. He tries to wipe it clean, but it only smears and there isn’t time. He can feel more troopers closing in. Kylo rips his helmet free from his head, ignoring the minor sting of where it snags a few strands of hair and lets it fall to the ground.

He lashes out a wild, whirling backslash and neatly removes two stormtroopers of their heads. They fall to the ground in a clatter of armor, red pooling swifty around them. The final one takes one good look at him, blood spattered and bared teeth and furious anger. The trooper turns and runs. 

Kylo doesn’t bother to chase after him and proceeds in following his senses towards his Knights.

**

Kylo is alone when he turns a corner and stops, stricken by the sight before him. 

The Droid stands, lumbering and tall. It guards a solitary door at the end of the hall with a single, military level lock.

“My programming does not permit me to allow you any further.” it says.

Something small and alive in Kylo’s heart, something he had once thought purged from him, aches at the Droid’s words. But he cannot stop now. 

Kylo silently reaches out with the Force and feels the Droid’s inner workings, the wires and the processors, until he finds the power core. 

“I understand.” Kylo says gently and then rips out the core. 

The Droid falls limp and Kylo reaches out and catches it before it hits the ground. Kylo sets the Droid down carefully. “I’m sorry.” he says to it. Then he stands and steps over the lifeless mechanics. 

The door stands silently before him, the final barrier between him and his Knights. The Force sibilates loudly in his ears. This, _this is it._

Kylo lifts his saber, bathing the hall in red light. He slowly pushes the blade into the lock, the metal melting and curling away from the heat. Then he starts to drag the blade down. 

**

He finishes cutting through the lock and pushes the door open. If he was trusting his eyes it would have been a room full of strangers. He’s only seen a sliver of the Rogue and a flash of all their faces, but the Force is certain. These are his Knights. He is not alone. 

But his joy at finding and rescuing his Knights is abruptly short lived. The first Knight he really looks at is the Pilot, slumped up against the corner of the cell. 

It takes Kylo a moment to understand what is wrong with him. The man's eyelashes are nearly nonexistent, the brows above them patchy at the edges and the delicate skin around his eyes are pockmarked with small divots that well up with blood. 

As Kylo watches, the Pilot digs his nails into the skin of his brow, the cuticles on his fingers torn and dark with dried, rusty flakes, and he plucks, eyes open wide but not seeing. 

The Rogue lays on the ground near him, the hollow of her throat is wet with sweat, her clothes stained with damp and salt. Red grooves are clawed down her arms and face, some alarmingly deep. 

The Spy sits next to her, his hands clamped down around her wrists to prevent further harm. She fights him, jerking roughly with her teeth bared, eyes wild. 

“Please. Please, stop.” the Spy is murmuring, blood dripping steadily from his nose and mouth, rivulets racing down his neck to stain his collar. From accidental injury or a symptom of something else, Kylo can’t tell.

“I’m here, it’s me.” the Spy says and the Rogue gradually slows and quiets. 

The Seer rests against the opposite wall, quietly, but incessantly praying, the Gunner sits beside him, eyes closed, breathing too carefully in time with the Seer’s verses.

The Seer’s head raises and turns to face the door, sightless eyes fixed on him and Kylo feels like he can’t draw enough air into his lungs. 

“Kylo.” the Seer says, and he thinks it’s the first time any one of them have spoken his name. It feels like a falsehood pressing against his skin, the phantom prickle of insects crawling over him. 

“How did this happen?” Kylo asks hoarsely, every fiber pulled tight with trying to restrain his anger, his fear and outrage. He doesn’t understand and failure tastes metallic in his mouth. 

“You started asking questions.” the Gunner says casually, as if his words hadn’t just brutally cut Kylo to the quick, to the marrow of his bones, leaving him sliced gaping and open. 

“This is my fault?” he whispers with tremulous horror, throat tight. There is screaming in his head and he doesn’t know how to make it stop. 

The Seer is next to Kylo in a flash, his hand is around Kylo’s wrist in a durasteel grip. “No.” he says, milky pale eyes boring into Kylo. “This is Snoke’s fault.” 

This is truth. 

The shriek in his mind quiets and settles. Kylo swallows, there will be time for this later. “We must go.” he says instead and the Seer nods. They get ready to move, struggling to their feet, broken and unsteady and half-mad. His love for them in that moment is fierce and all consuming. Kylo wants to reach for them but doesn’t know how.

The Gunner grips the Pilot, who fights the hold only briefly before sagging and the larger man hauls him over his shoulders in an impromptu Gamorrean-back ride. The Spy rouses the Rogue to her feet, her arm around the back of his neck so he could brace her as they moved. 

The alarm is still shrieking. 

“We must go.” Kylo repeats, greater urgency in his tone, lancing through his limbs. They brace themselves and start forward. Kylo nearly trips himself on the Droid on the way out, almost forgetting what he had done to get to the cell it guarded. 

The Spy leans the Rogue against the doorway and drops to his knees in front of the Droid, and Kylo can feel how gutted he is even through their broken connection. The Spy’s mouth goes to form words, but he isn’t able to speak the Droid’s name. There’s only the spiraling darkness in his mind when he searches for it. 

“We can’t leave him.” the Spy mumbles, the words clumsy and malformed. 

“ _We must go!_ ” Kylo shouts, fear edging him into hysteria. 

“We’re not leaving him.” the Spy insists, hair hanging loose in his eyes. 

Kylo feels light headed and unmoored. “We don’t have time -” Kylo protests. 

“We’re not leaving him!” the Spy shouts, blood frothing at the corners of his mouth, furious. Rage spills off of him and the Force writhes tempestuously. It’s the first time Kylo’s ever heard the Spy raise his voice and he blinks in shock. 

“He holds important information, information we could use.” the Seer adds reasonably from where he’s standing next to Kylo’s elbow, offering legitimacy to the Spy’s riotous emotion. 

They refuse to be separated. 

Kylo forces himself to be calm, allowing the panic that’s jittering through his veins to dissipate into the Force, settling him and the others. “Okay, okay.” Kylo nods and licks his lips. He reaches out a hand and grips the limp Droid with the Force, the torn skin of his side pulling apart a bit more under the strain, and lifts. 

“Let’s go.” 

**

They pass through the hallway that's littered with stormtrooper bodies and splashed red. There isn’t time to stop, and they are far too used to such sights to hesitate at the sight of Kylo’s work. They’ve done worse. They simply take care to step over strewn corpses and not to slip in the blood.

They know what lengths Kylo would go for them. They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. The Knights and Kylo continue on, they can’t afford to waste any time.

**

Kylo, concentrating on escape and focused on holding the Droid aloft, does not sense the trooper stationed on the upper walks of the complex until it’s too late. They were so close to escaping.

It’s only his last minute flinch, the slightest whisper of the Force, that causes the blaster charge to graze his thigh instead of blowing off his leg. He stumbles and nearly falls, a sudden chunk of muscle burned out. 

The Droid clatters to the ground in a cacophony that is sure to alert further troops to their presence, if they don’t know their location already. 

The Gunner, the Pilot draped across his back little impediment, turns in a single smooth motion and hurls a blade. It whistles through the air with shocking speed, shattering through the dark glass of the shooter’s eye. The trooper falls backwards and does not rise again. 

The Seer is gripping Kylo’s elbow, hauling him upright when he puts weight on the leg and it falters beneath him. Kylo gets to his feet, hissing in pain, his weight balanced precariously, but manageably for now. Adrenaline and fear mask the extent of the damage. They can deal with it later, first they must get to the ship. 

He once again takes hold of the Droid and carries it suspended a few feet above the ground, but his grip on the force is made slippery from pain and the Droid wobbles unsteadily. It will have to do. 

The Spy grits his jaw, readjusts his hold on the Rogue, and picks up the pace. They are nearly clear of the building and then it’s only a short sprint to the ship and they are free. 

Agony burns excruciatingly through him as they run across the hanger, but he uses it to fuel his use of the Force, his anger at what has been done to them, his anger and hatred with himself. 

It’s enough to get them to the ship and inside. He lets the Droid fall unceremoniously in the back and drags himself to the pilot’s seat. He begins the takeoff procedure, hands flying over the controls with panic driven skill. He ignores the warnings blaring through the comms at him and begins evasive action when the turbo cannon mounted on the base fires at them. 

He can hear his Knights scramble to hold on to something as he rolls and dives, just barely avoiding a laser bolt that would have sent them careening down into the black ocean below them. 

He punches through the planet’s atmosphere and goes abruptly slack when they are safely away from Ttaz. He sets the navcomputer to begin calculations for lightspeed and finally lets the pain of his injuries sweep over him. 

The Seer is up, searching for the first aid kit on the shuttle, but it slips from his hands no matter how tightly he tries to grip it. The Gunner lumbers over and picks it up off the ground. 

“Sit.” the Gunner tells the Seer. There is an implied _before I make you sit_ and the Seer complies, but not without a huff. 

The Gunner brings the kit over, and it’s woefully understocked. There aren’t even any bacta patches. The most they can do for Kylo is wrap his leg and hope he doesn’t bleed out. 

Kylo looks over his Knights, the Rogue twitching and fighting in her delirium, the Spy is still bleeding, the Pilot digging his nails into his own flesh, the Seer now too weak to hold himself up and the Gunner slow and dizzy. Kylo feels nauseous with shame and anger twisting in his gut. He has failed them. 

He may have gotten them off that planet, but he can’t repair what’s broken inside them, inside him. He can’t even solidify their bond, still tenuous and mashed together incorrectly. 

He can’t undo what Snoke has done to them, the intricate coding impressed into them he cannot begin to grasp. His own fumbling would no doubt make them worse, as it already has. He can’t undo what Snoke has done, he doesn’t have the mastery. 

There’s only one person he knows who does. Luke. He feels sick with it, too many emotions to name, and inputs the coordinates to D’Qar. They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. His duty is to them. And this is something it has taken many, many years, but he thinks he’s beginning to understand. 

Then he throws the ship into lightspeed. 

**

They slide back into realspace just outside of atmo and Kylo takes the shuttle down to the planet with slick hands. Sweat is dripping down his back and his hands are unsteady on the controls. The bandages around his leg have soaked through dark red, nearly black. 

He points the shuttle towards where he knows the Resistance base is and let’s autopilot do the rest, too exhausted to manually fly. Or maybe that’s just the blood loss. 

They enter Resistence airspace soon enough and the comm instantly begins blinking with transmissions. 

Kylo looks at the little blinking light for what seems to be an inordinate amount of time. 

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” the Seer says, his face half pressed into the wall, his muscles too limp to properly hold himself upright any longer. The Seer’s reserves are completely depleted and he can’t continue any further on the Force and willpower alone. 

Kylo can hear the Spy murmuring to a feverish Rogue from the back of the ship. The man can no longer form words, but his voice is pulled tight with strain, his anguish a deep ache in the Force, tasting of stardust and saltwater. 

The Pilot twitches in the Gunner’s grasp, mindlessly trying to bring his hands to his face and seeming mildly confused when he can’t, the sensation dissonant from the Pilot’s usual sharp hyper awareness. 

Kylo coughs, takes a slow, wet inhale. 

They’re still degrading, even him. His rescue and attempt to reestablish their bond had only stayed the progress momentarily, but he can’t help them. They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. His duty is to them. 

“Yes, I do.” he responds. 

(This is truth.)

He leans forward and hits the open transmission button with slippery fingers. 

His Knights watch from behind.

“Enemy cruiser, please identify yourself or we _will_ be forced to shoot you.” 

The Resistance Air Traffic technician presses the earpiece harder against his head, but all he can detect is indistinct almost as if people are speaking far away enough from the mic that none of it comes through. The signal cuts off abruptly into static. 

The rebel technician leans forward, voice terse. “I repeat, enemy cruiser, state your name and intentions or we will be forced to shoot you.”

There is silence for a long time and the cruiser continues to gradually descend into Resistance air space. General Organa stands steady behind the man’s shoulder, eyes intent on the readouts in front of them. A moment or two longer without response and she will have to make the call to have the intruder shot down, no matter how badly her instincts tell her not to.

Or maybe it’s the Force urging her to wait, it’s hard to tell these days. 

”My name is Kylo Ren and my intention is to slaughter every single person on this planet if you do not allow me to land.” comes the crackly response. 

The technician swallows nervously and looks back at General Organa, who, after a moment, nods. “Do as he says.”

“Copy that enemy cruiser, you will be escorted to platform 11.” the technician replies quickly. 

“Thank you.” Kylo responds, oddly polite. 

“What do we do now?” the technician asks, looking back at her with wide, frightened eyes. 

The General presses her lips into a line. “Send out X wings to escort them in.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” and he leaps to obey. 

Leia looks over at her assistant. “Have soldiers on standby when the shuttle lands. Get Luke,” she pauses, “and tell him to come alone.”

Her assistant salutes and immediately gets to work. Leia can sense Luke reach out and brush against her, having felt the spike of anxiety and then the mishmash of emotional detritus that followed. 

He had been content, talking airships with Poe while aiding Rey in her lessons. His concern tangles around her like brambles and it dissipates with curiosity as his comm buzzes. 

Leia pulls away from him, her brother will be given the details and be by her side soon enough. 

She can sense nothing of her son, not even the faintest whisper and she doesn’t know if she should be relieved or terrified by that.

Two black squadron fighters scream through the air as they go to carefully escort the shuttle to the base. Leia closes her eyes and hopes she doesn’t come to regret this. 

**

They touch down with relative smoothness, the spiky X wings menacing on either side of them.

Kylo stands up lopsidedly and closes his eyes when the edges of his vision fades out and breathes carefully through his nose. His shirt has stuck, clotted to his side where the wound had reopened, and it breaks wide anew, tearing away with the fabric. The meat of his thigh squelches, blood oozing through the makeshift bandages, sticky and hot down his leg, dripping to the floor. 

Kylo takes a step and nearly falls, catching himself at last minute on the edge of a console. A high pitched whine escapes through clenched teeth. 

He feels the Gunner lend what strength he can through their broken bond, fragmented and twisted, but it braces against his spine, stalwart and steady like bedrock beneath sand. 

Kylo stands. 

He hits the button to lower the walkway and watches with dulled eyes as it slowly descends. He supports himself as much as possible against the wall and with the discordant feedback of their ill aligned minds a climbing pressure in the back of his skull, he walks. 

There are soldiers with guns aimed at him from the moment they see his feet. Their fear is a sour note in the Force, like rot and sweat. They waver when he doesn’t come striding easily down the bay door. The men look uncertainly at their commander who gestures for them to hold steady. Luke stands beside them, hood down and lightsaber drawn, but unlit. 

Kylo limps, painful step after painful step, leaving a trail of smeared, red bootprints behind him. When he’s reached where metal meets earth there is no longer a wall to brace himself against and he stops for a moment to gather his breath, desperately trying to get enough air as the world spins around him. 

_We are one with the Force,_ they think. They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. 

_The Force is with us,_ they whisper together and Kylo looks up and locks eyes with Luke, his uncle, his master. 

“You have to help them.” Kylo says in a rasping voice, free of any guile.

This is truth. 

Luke’s brows furrow slightly in confusion or concern. Kylo takes another step and nearly pitches forward, but his eyes never leave his uncle’s. His duty is to his Knights. 

“Promise me you will -” he coughs and the pain is nearly blinding and he staggers, falls to his knees. “Please.” he begs. 

He’s not even sure who he’s talking to anymore, begging the universe, begging the ground beneath him, begging the Force. “Please, you have to help them, you have to...” he blacks out and doesn’t even feel his face hit the dirt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quite a doozy, this chapter, hm?
> 
> fear not intrepid readers, the next chapter should be right on time!


	5. chapter five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to get this chapter out much earlier today, honest. An accidental four hour nap kinda sidetracked that plan, but here it is!

“What’s wrong with them?” Leia asks her brother softly. 

The two of them stand in front of the newly admitted patients, a row of beds lining the wall. It's quiet except for the beeps of machinery and the noise of soft, regulated breathing. If it weren’t for the way the patients’ chests rise and fall, one would almost think they were dead. 

Kylo has been placed in separate room from them, heavily guarded by soldiers that don’t have an actual clue who they’re guarding. It’s easier for everyone that way. 

Luke is contemplative. “It’s only a guess, until I can examine them myself, but -” he pauses to stroke at his beard and Leia fights the desire to roll her eyes and smack him. “I think it might be a variation of a long term mind trick. There are old Jedi theories about its extended use, but it was considered unethical.” 

Leia can see why the practice was banned. The patients are nearly non responsive, eerily still. It’s in contrast to the frenetic mindlessness they exhibited before. The woman had to be put in restraints to keep her from clawing out the orderlies’ eyes or her own. 

The man hadn’t let them take her from his grip without a fight, his face twisted up, teeth bared like a wild animal, snarling. They ended up having to sedate him before they could even get near enough to administer basic treatment. 

The other three had been blessedly unconscious by the time Luke and the soldiers had reached them. The siblings are quiet for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Leia stares with haunted eyes at the row of patients. Something about them had been niggling at the back of her mind, something familiar about the people her son had brought to her base. 

Leia can feel something like curiosity bubbling in Luke, but less defined. She waits him out. For a supposed Jedi Master, he was never very good at holding back. 

"Want to hear something crazy?” he blurts out. 

Well, he didn’t even last as long as she thought. She lifts her eyebrow at him and glances around the room like she dares him to come up with something crazier than their current situation. Luke grins, wide and boyish and it’s like a punch to the chest. It’s been years since she’s last seen it. 

“That man there, the third one.” Luke continues, “I’d swear he’s the spitting image of Bodhi Rook.” 

Unease ripples through Leia. “The pilot of Rogue One?” she asks slowly. Luke doesn’t notice her reluctance. 

Luke nods. _Bantha poodoo_ , she thinks. The others, she was less certain. She had once researched the team who had started what she and Luke had finished so long ago. Regarding the resemblance between those old holos and the people laid out before her, well, she had thought that perhaps she was imagining things, the reminiscing of old age. Except for Cassian.

“Would it be crazy if I thought those two were the leaders of Rogue One?” she asks, but she knows the answer. 

Leia feels something definite in her gut. She's looking at a dead man who's face had once been as familar to her as her father's. Cassian Andor had trained her, taught her what it meant to serve the Rebellion. If is truly him lying on that bed, she isnt sure she wants to acknowledge what that means. 

And Luke thinking so too? No longer a coincidence. 

“Clones?” she theorizes aloud while studying the uncanny likenesses, but even she doesn’t believe it. 

Luke’s mouth thins. “Possibly.”

“But you don’t think so.” she concludes for them both. 

“No. No, I don’t.”

It should be impossible, the alternative that they’re left with, it _should_. And, yet. Leia sighs and waves over a doctor. “I want blood samples, DNA profiles, _and_ fingerprints rushed through, is that clear?” 

The doctor nods and sets about the task, a med droid rolling alongside at his feet.

Luke sighs, smiles, and steps forward to who may or may not be Cassian Andor. “Either way, I made a promise to Ben that I would help them.” He settles his hands on either side of the younger man’s face. 

Leia’s gut clenches. “Be careful, Luke.” she warns suddenly. He looks up at her. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” she says. 

He touches one of their temples and dives in. 

**

From across the compound Rey, helping Poe fix his X Wing, drops the wrench she was holding aloft in the Force. It clangs loud and startling through the hanger.

BB-8 beeps concernedly at her, rolling forward to nudge at her boot, but is given no response. His droid warbles loudly to get Poe’s attention and he crawls out from under the paneling to see what’s wrong. 

“Rey?” he asks, leaning forward, a hand outstretched towards her shoulder, but unsure if he should make contact. “Are you alright?”

Her head slowly turns to him and her eyes are dark and unseeing, and it makes goosebumps break out down his spine. Her hand jerks up towards her face like a marionette, fingers curled into claws, and her mouth opens in a silent scream. Poe is about to send BB-8 to fetch Luke or Leia when awareness gradually begins filtering into her expression and her hand falls limp to her side. 

“I-” she stops, brows furrowed. She looks up like she’s confused about where she’s at. “...Poe?” Rey asks, her voice small. 

Poe blows out a breath in relief and grips her shoulder, his palm wide and dry. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. Is everything alright?” Poe gives her a gentle, little shake and it’s enough to ground her. The warmth of the contact leeches away the chilling sensation that had taken ahold of her. 

“Yes.” she says, but doesn’t sound completely certain. “Everything just got so cold, and the _noise_ -” she chokes off. She closes her eyes and can still sense it, a whirling, screaming blizzard. Emptiness, agony. It reminds her of Starkiller Base and the sting of snow on her skin. 

Poe pulls her into a hug and she breathes in deep, inhaling the smell of sweat and grease and his cologne. “Not on this planet.” he jokes softly into her hair. 

D'Qar is temperate and overwhelmingly humid even on the worst of days. Her hands fist his shirt tightly just below his shoulder blades and he can feel her slight trembling fade into stillness. Rey pulls back and he lets her, but not before pressing a kiss to her temple.

She meets his gaze and takes him in, tousled hair falling into his warm brown eyes and oil streaked across his cheek. It’s comforting and familiar. BB-8 rolls back and forth at their feet, whistling out cheerfully and she feels reassured. 

She shakes her head, chasing away those last few remnants of biting cold and gives him an apologetic smile. “I’m fine now.” 

Poe regards her suspiciously, eyes narrowing, and BB-8 trills out something equally skeptical. Her smile widens into a grin. “Really, I’m fine.” 

“Alright.” Poe acquiesces easily enough. “But you’d talk to me or Finn or one of the Skywalkers’ if you weren’t, right?” 

“I promise.” Rey swears solemnly. Poe eyes her for a moment more before relaxing. 

“Well, in that case,” he says, deciding the next best thing is to keep her preoccupied, “I could use your help reaching the fuselage. The angle is weird.” 

Rey crawls under the X Wing beside Poe with the Force at her fingertips.

**

Luke’s face is nearly bloodless, pale and clammy. Leia had barely thrown her shields up in time, protecting herself from the worst of it and she still felt the otherwordly cold grip her down to her toes. She tries to set aside her worry for her brother, but she’s sure he would sense it if he wasn’t so preoccupied. They’ve wrapped Luke up in a blanket and he’s wedged himself into a corner, his eyes wide and very far away. 

The way he had screamed when he delved into their minds will chill her for the rest of her life, she thinks. 

Luke slowly comes back to himself, limbs loosening and clarity returning to his gaze. He looks up, almost surprised to find himself tucked tightly against the wall, blanket nearly pinning his arms to his sides. 

“Luke?” Leia asks and he turns his head to his sister and upon taking in her expression, sends waves of reassurance over her. 

“Leia.” he breathes. “It’s alright, I’m alright.” 

“You were screaming.” she says, voice raw. 

He shakes his head. “That wasn’t me.” he untangles himself and stands. Leia wants to rush over to him, hug him tight until his ribs creak, but she steels her spine and stays. “It was them.” Luke says.

Leia isn’t sure how to process that information. Luke is still bewildered and fascinated by what he sensed after he got past the endless screaming that folded back on itself in a never ending loop. Snoke crafted them into weapons, flayed them open and scoured them empty. Over and over and over. 

No wonder they never stopped screaming. 

“Can you help them?” Leia asks when Luke still hasn’t explained. 

“Yes, I think so.” he takes a moment and continues. “I - I didn’t understand the scope of what had been done to them...” he trails off, his eyes glassy. He shakes himself and rallies. 

“In a way, they already begun the process. They started to break down Snoke’s -” he pauses, searching for the proper word. “ _Conditioning_ on their own, but it set off a chain reaction and as the programming began to fail, to decay, it became harmful. Without the aid of a powerful and skilled force user in its removal, it would have eaten away at them until there was nothing left.”

Realization breaks over Leia. “Kylo wouldn’t be able to help them, that’s why he came back. He needed you.” 

Leia doesn’t know if that is tragic or not. Her son faced down the man he viewed as his worst enemy and begged for help, because of these people. They must be very important to Ben. 

Luke must somehow sense her unasked question. 

“I think - I think they’re his Knights.” Luke tells her. 

Leia nods, having wondered. Guards will have to be posted at the doors here, too.

“He only asked for them.” Luke says quietly. “He only asked us to help them.” His face is expressionless, but Leia can sense his grief, his heartache twisted up inside him like shrapnel, sharp and digging. 

“I know.” Leia replies and reaches her arm out and tucks her brother against her side. 

**

Kylo comes awake with a sharp gasp, and his hand goes to his waist, freshly bandaged, and then to his thigh, also wrapped in gauze and bacta patches. The room is small and utterly empty save for a small droid near the monitor display. There is no one else there. His first thought is _Where are his Knights?_

The Med Droid in the corner must have alerted someone, because a doctor comes through the door. 

“You’re not supposed to be up yet.” the human says with a nervous smile. Kylo burns through medication faster than others with how often Snoke’s lessons sent him to Medical. Ah, so they didn’t mean for him to wake up.

“Where are they?” Kylo croaks. He refuses to be separated from them. He is not meant to be alone. 

The doctor ignores the question, every line of the man’s body screaming unease. Kylo starts to sit forward and the man shouts for assistance. 

Kylo isn’t able to get up before there are hands pressing down on him and he thrashes in wild panic. Where are his Knights? He can’t feel them anywhere, which is almost worse than the shrieking of their broken connection. It’s like his limbs have been cut off from him, like he’s been set on fire. 

“ _Where_ are they?” he demands and they offer useless platitudes to sit back and rest. Well, if they will not tell him where his Knights are, he will just have to go find them. 

The Force builds up in him, pressure mounting until it blister bursts, propelling them away from him. He manages to swing his legs over the edge of the bed despite the few still standing nurses trying to prevent him. 

Luke comes dashing in, aiding the orderlies by fighting against Kylo’s shoving with his own mastery of the Force. 

“ _Where are they?!_ ” Kylo roars. A med droid begins to inject his IV with a sedative surreptitiously in the corner. 

“They are fine, Ben. We’re helping them. They’re safe.” Luke assures him, gently easing him back as the chemicals take hold, fogging up his eyes and slackening his muscles. 

“Where are they?” he asks once more, quietly, confused. 

“We’re helping them, I promise. They’re safe.”

Kylo eyes flutter and close. 

**

Leia admits she spends more time than she should in the private ward, looking over the men and woman her son risked everything for. The people she's coming to believe are the crew of Rogue One, even without the test results yet.

It’s the Resistance’s best kept secret at the moment. No one besides the technician that took the call, the soldiers that had guarded the landing platform, the medics issuing treatment, and Luke and Leia herself knew that her son and his friends were here. Leia isn’t sure how long they are going to be able to keep it that way. 

“How are they this morning?” Leia asks Doctor Mcati, same as she does every visit. 

“Holding steady.” the woman smiles, her montrals tied back to avoid getting in the way of her work. “Luke visited and said they showed marked improvement in their mental stability and force presence. They were even conscious for a bit, but we put them back under to better aid the healing process.”

Leia smiles. “He said as much. Do we know anything more about them? Have the blood tests come back?” 

Dr. Mcati shook her head. “It should be any time today, though.”

Leia nodded. As if the Force had maneuvered things itself, the monitoring equipment chimed an alert. The little med droid rolled over to check it. 

“The blood tests have just been reported, Dr. Mcati. Shall I pull up their records for you?” the med droid asks politely. The doctor blinks at it in consternation. 

“I’m sorry, what?” the doctor asks the bot. Previous records?

It swivels its head to look at her, its optical sensors wide and somehow innocent. “Shall I pull up their records for you?”

“Yes, please show us their previous records.” Leia says with interest, expectant. 

“The blood type and profile are exact matches. Three of the five patients in Ward A have established records. Captain Cassian Andor of the rebel alliance, deceased. Sergeant Jyn Erso, rank awarded posthumously, deceased. Lieutenant Bodhi Rook, rank awarded posthumously, deceased.” 

The knowledge settles in Leia’s bones and the Force rings with truth. “And the other two?” she asks. 

The droid whirrs, processing the request. “Extrapolating data from known associates, patients A5819-12 and A5819-13 are likely Guardians Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus, whose medical records are incomplete. All were given honors for their exemplary service during the Battle of Scarif.”

Leia sighs very carefully and very slowly, “Can you confirm that the people we are currently treating are the ones that stole the Death Star plans? Rogue One?”

“Yes.” the droid replies, sounding a bit pleased. “Both DNA and fingerprint scans are full matches.”

“How is that possible?” Leia asks aloud, curious. “They should be in their fifties, at the very least.” She remembers Cassian careworn and seemingly in a permanent state of exhaustion. She’d eat a helmet if they were a day over thirty five. 

The doctor hesitates and studies the data pad in her hands. “The antibodies and signs of cellular reconstruction could be from extended cryo exposure.” she suggests, the readings suddenly making sense in that context. 

Leia looks at the row of patients - the Rebellion’s legends and heroes, and the First Order’s terrors and assassins, sleeping peacefully.

“Force help us.” she sighs. 

** 

Rey is munching on some sort of root vegetable that is newly appeared in the mess hall, as she’s made it a point to try everything at least once. Finn had sniffed it, but ultimately passed. He’s a warm presence at her side as he strategically cleans his plate next to her. 

She’s lost in her thoughts and the mechanical tedium of chewing when Poe sits down with a sort of heaviness in his limbs, alarmingly unlike his usual grace, to join them. 

Rey glances over at Finn, asking wordlessly with a glance if he knows what the deal with Poe is. Finn’s wide eyed confusion tells her all she needs to know. 

“Something is bothering you.” Rey says, still unused to the odd hem-hawing other people went about when they wanted to know something. She at least manages to stop herself from questioning directly _what is it?_

Poe squirms in his seat, tries to plaster on an easygoing grin, but they both can tell it’s false, even if Rey couldn’t sense his disquiet in the Force. It feels like an itch under the skin she can’t quite reach. 

“Kylo Ren,” Poe begins and both Rey and Finn’s attention sharpens on him. “Would you - Can you sense where he is?” Poe asks with a wince. 

She reaches out and tangles their fingers together on the tabletop. They all know the answer. “You know if I could that I would be there.” she says, sympathy creasing her brow. The _kicking his ass_ part went unsaid, but from Poe’s half smile, maybe he heard it anyway. “But you know that’s not how the Force works, Poe.”

He shakes his head at himself with a mirthless laugh, “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just rumor anyway, I shouldn’t let it get to me.”

Rey gives his hand a supportive squeeze. “What sort of rumor?” she asks in that tone of voice that says she will track down whoever started it and make them pay for upsetting Poe. 

Poe hesitates, but the look in her arresting eyes demand he continue. “You remember that shuttle some X Wings escorted in a few weeks back? Someone said Kylo Ren was on it and that he’s being held somewhere in the base right now.” 

“You don’t think they would actually do that, do you?” Rey asks with muted surprise. 

Finn shifts awkwardly and suddenly he’s being stared down by the two most beautiful people he’s met and the truth spills out of him. “I heard some of the ground troops say something like that, too. That General Organa and Master Skywalker are keeping it quiet for some reason.”

“Luke has been awfully busy lately.” she says slowly. They all lock eyes and Rey decides in that moment she’s going to get to the bottom of all of this. 

**

“I have a theory.” Luke says. He’s less shaky after his sessions with Rogue One, sometimes he sleeps in the Ward with them, spending as much time as he can to understand and safely repair what had been done to them. 

“I’m not going to like it, am I.” Leia says wearily. 

“I think Rogue One was the prototype. I think - I think he practiced.” 

There’s a certain sort of horror imagining that. 

“I think that they were Snoke’s first, real success - so he kept them.”

“Like pets.” Leia snarls, the words foul in her mouth and she knows the sensation of a chain pulling at her neck better than some. 

“Like attack anoobas.” Luke says, his mouth a cutting line across his face. He was born free, but he knows slavery when he sees it. “And then, once he had perfected it...” he trails off. 

“He started to do it to Ben.” 

Luke looks away, but nods. 

“Can you -” she won’t say fix, she _won’t_. “Can you help him?” 

“I sure as hell am going to try.” Luke promises and she leans into his warmth, his determination as wide and unrelenting as the desert. 


	6. chapter six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who would have thought we'd make it this far? I certainly didn't. Thank you to all you lovely readers and those that subscribed, commented and kudos. You're the real MVPs. :)
> 
> Sections of this chapter really fought me, so if it seems a bit choppy - that's on me. Also chapter count got upped because there will be a short epilogue after this, but not a full chapter, this is the last one.

Kylo wakes up more awake than he thinks he’s ever felt before to see Luke and Leia watching over him. He can sense it’s been a long time since he was conscious. 

“Mother.” he says quietly, his dark eyes are unfamiliar, but they are not full of hate and rage and pain either. 

_Where are they?_ he thinks, but does not say. He tries to stretch out his senses, to find them, to understand where they have gone, but everything is muffled. Quiet. Without them there with him all the empty spaces echo back at him, hollow and hungry. 

“Hey there, my little manka cat, how are you feeling?” Leia asks as gently as she can. 

The term of endearment is met with no recognition, only blankness. Realizing she is expecting something of him, Kylo’s brows draw together in confusion.

Leia, saddened by the knowledge of how much has been taken from her son, smiles slightly. “I used to call you that all the time when you were small.” she says. 

Kylo lays his head back and feels heat prickle behind his eyes. 

“I don’t remember.” he says, his voice lacking inflection. His eyes close and tears fall down the sides of his face. There are more empty spaces than full ones, he’s a patchwork of caves, gaping maws and sucking mires and there is nothing in him worth saving. “I don’t remember that.” he whispers. “I’m sorry.” 

Leia brushes back the hair off his forehead. “I know, baby. I know. It’s okay.”

It isn’t, but Kylo drifts back into sleep. 

“How much -” _is lost?_ she does not say, though perhaps it might have been kinder. “How much has been taken from him?” she asks, stroking her sleeping son’s hair. 

Luke has many answers, and none of them are good enough. He closes his eyes in something like pain. 

“Too much.” he says.

**

“I think it might be safe to permanently wake them up.” Luke informs her after working intensively with the Knights for weeks. 

“Are you sure?” 

He nods. They start with Cassian, the man’s eyelashes fluttering as he comes awake. The second awareness sharpens his gaze, his hand is in a vice like grip around Luke’s throat. 

“Where are they?” he demands. Luke, trying to remain calm even as his sister levels a blaster at them, because when it comes down to Cassian or her brother - she will always pick Luke. Luke flails only a little bit as he points to the row of people next to them. 

Instantly, the pressure around his throat vanishes. Cassian has nearly leapt from his bed and is halfway on Jyn’s, cradling her hand between his own. “Jyn,” he says, because he’s capable of it now. Because, of course her name would be the first on his lips. “Jyn, _Jyn_.” He presses the syllables into the palm of her hand. 

“What is your name?” Luke asks him. It’s a test of sorts, a marker of how well Luke has done in healing what Snoke had broken in them. Their names had been the first thing stripped from them. 

“I am the Spy.” Cassian says automatically. 

“That is what you are.” Luke says patiently. “I asked what is your name.” 

“My name is C-” his throat clicks, stopping him short. 

There’s a moment where he realizes there is no pain coming for him, no compulsions overriding his brain.

“My name is Cassian.” he says and a smile stretches unfamiliar across his face. “My name is Cassian.” he repeats, joy slowly bubbling up in him, broadcasting loud and clear in the Force.

Luke feels it effect him, it’s so strong and pure. “Yes.” he grins. “Yes, it is.” 

Leia has lowered her blaster and seems to be getting a little contact high herself from the sparkle in her eyes. 

Cassian looks down at the woman sleeping on the bed, still sedated. “And she is Jyn.” 

Luke nods. He understands that Cassian is working through his thoughts being his own, uninhibited, as he goes through and names all of his teammates. Touching them and repeating their names in a reverent tone of voice. 

Then he asks. “Where is Kylo?”

Both Luke and Leia startle a little at that. “He is being held in another room.” Leia explains.

Cassian’s eyes are fever bright and burning. “You are helping him too, right? He’s like us.” and that’s the most understated way of saying it. Kylo is like them, he is one of them. He is not meant to be alone.

“Yes, yes we’re helping him, too. I promise.” Luke swears and Cassian stares at him for a long time before nodding. 

“Then you will bring him here.” Cassian commands in a tone that brooks no argument. 

Still, Luke hesitates. Cassian’s gaze goes flinty and the Force gathers around him like thunderclouds, rolling and electric. Luke feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. 

“You _will_ bring him here.” Cassian repeats slowly, in a manner that means awful things will be brought down upon them if they do not do exactly as instructed. Leia remembers that tone from when she was barely more than a child, already a spy and a senator all at once.

Luke glances back at his sister. She nods. She knows that if they backed these people into a corner they would earn why they had been called Rogue One in the first place. “Very well.” Luke agrees. 

Cassian subsides, the dangerous accumulation of Force dissipating like mist. “We will not be separated.”

**

Kylo wakes only briefly, but it’s only the work of a moment to realize what has been changed. 

He is not alone. His Knights rest in beds on either side of him, and when he stretches out his senses they are there, warm and familiar. 

Whole. 

The Rogue’s eyes are open when he drifts his gaze over her. She smiles gently at him and he feels the gesture returned on his face, unaccustomed but genuine. 

She swings her legs over the edge of her bed and walks over to him. She stands at his bedside, gripping his hand tightly in her own, green eyes glittering. She says nothing, but not because she isn’t capable of speech, but because no words would ever be adequate. 

She traces the scar that slashes across his face with the feather light touch of her finger tips. He closes his eyes and she just smooths the hair from his face and it is enough. The Force hums gently between them.

**

They’re all awake and alive and it’s almost too much for Kylo to grasp. They’re different, but still much the same. They tell him their names in excited tones and he memorizes them as he once memorized their designations as a boy. They talk of their pasts and they converse together, all piled around his bed, long after the lights have gone out on the base.

They are the Knights of Ren and they are his, and he consumes any and all information on them as he can. He requests a datapad and knows whatever he looks up is no doubt being monitored, but his searches are full of Rogue One and the early Rebellion. 

The Rogue - _Jyn_ , he thinks to himself - kicks her feet up next to his on the bed and leans her chair back as if she’s a child of fifteen instead of a seasoned warrior of at least thirty. It makes Kylo want to grin conspiratorially at her, as if the two of them are in on some secret everyone else wished they knew. 

The Spy, Cassian, settles into his chair next to her at his elbow, the line of his arm pressed to hers, and begins to tell him of the comings and goings on of the people in the rebel base. Kylo, bewildered, still doesn’t know how he gets all of this information. None of them have been allowed to step foot outside. 

Chirrut and Baze are near the door, guarding them, he realizes belatedly, and Bodhi the Pilot dozes lightly on Kylo’s other side, feet splayed out and nearly touching the edge of Baze’s boot, an abandoned sabacc game spread out on the ground between them. There is a warmth in Kylo’s chest and he finds himself smiling as he returns his attention to the rebel dossiers on his datapad.

“It says the Rebel Alliance broke you out of a Wobani prison. What did you do to end up there?” Kylo asks Jyn, inquisitive. The report doesn’t say.

“Committed a crime.” Jyn replies back dryly and Cassian has to bring his hand up to his mouth as if in thoughtful contemplation to try and hide his small smile. Kylo rolls his eyes and returns to the datapad in front of him. 

“You got the plans off Scarif and evaded even Darth Vader.” Kylo reads, a bit impressed despite all the nearly impossible missions they’ve completed together. 

“Well, not _us_ us.” Chirrut clarifies. 

“We were all dead by then.” Baze concludes. 

“I met him once, you know.” Bodhi says, picking at a loose thread at the stitching of his sleeve.

“Who?” Kylo asks mildly. 

“Your grandfather. Darth Vader.” 

Kylo looks up, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah, not - not long, but yes.”

“What was he like?” Kylo can’t help but ask, curiosity getting the better of him. 

“Terrifying.” Bodhi blurts out, then he flinches and his eyes flicker away. He licks his lips nervously. “Absolutely terrifying. He was there inspecting the kyber crystals we were transporting. Then, out of nowhere, he turns and decapitates a pilot with his saber. Said he was a rebel spy.” Bodhi gives a breathy laugh. “It was a good thing I hadn’t decided to defect yet, or he probably would have killed me, too.”

And it dawns over Kylo right then, that single sentence. Because Kylo is torn between admiration of his most cherished ancestor and the sheer rage that encompasses the idea of someone hurting his Knights. It pains him, the dichotomy of his heart, the conflict within him. After a moment Kylo reaches out and encircles Bodhi’s bird-thin wrist with his hand. 

“I’d never let him lay a finger on you.” Kylo says solemnly and Bodhi stares back at him, wide eyed and startled. He looks down, but Kylo can see the faint blush dusting his cheeks and feel the soft warmth suffuse him in the Force.

“None of us would.” Jyn asserts, letting her chair fall back to the ground with a bang, the air bristling around her with unshed ferocity at the thought of a threat to her pilot. Cassian reaches out and runs his fingertips down the length of her arm and she subsides, grumbling slightly. “Well, we wouldn’t.”

“I know, Jyn.” Cassian murmurs in response. “We all do.” Bodhi nods in agreement and Baze and Chirrut chuckle softly at them. 

It’s new, different from what they had before, but the Force hums pleasantly between them the same. It’s no longer hushed whispers shared in darkness, but conversation in the light of day and Kylo can keep his eyes on their faces without repercussions. And if he finds himself in the habit of staring too hard and too long at them, they never make mention of it. 

**

They are all dealing with the change of circumstances in their own way, Jyn seems to wrap herself in irreverence while Cassian adopts the opposite approach, always respectful, mindful of the order of things, rank and file. Chirrut and Baze appear to be taking everything in stride, calm and unruffled, but Kylo has caught them taking shifts guarding them at night. Bodhi sticks close to at least one of the others at all times, perpetually skittish. 

During the day they affect nonchalance, talking softly amongst themselves, but fall silent when others enter the room and resume only once they’ve left. It reminds Kylo that they aren’t safe here, not really. They are still prisoners, just of another sort. 

When the base shifts into nighttime hours they cluster together like they always did before, but now with Kylo, too. They huddle in and usually some part of them is in contact with the others, abandoning their own beds to sleep together on the floor or braced against his own bed, a pile of tangled limbs. 

If only to remind themselves that they are not alone. They are not alone. This is truth. 

**

Kylo is sitting in bed, his leg still not well enough to bear his weight for more than a few moments at a time. Luke is with them, but he’s not here in a medical capacity. Their minds are their own now, but Luke still comes to visit. 

Kylo thinks it’s because Luke enjoys the peace and quiet. The Resistance base is bustling and loud at the best of times, especially so for Luke, who has been alone in the silence for so long on his little island. 

Cassian had requested the Droid be brought to them during one of Kylo’s bouts of unconsciousness so both Cassian and Bodhi are working on reprogramming and fixing it. Wiring and metal pieces litter their corner and even Luke comes over now and again to offer advice on repair. There’s a little fuss kicked up at Kylo’s treatment of the power core, which takes Kylo a moment to recognize as teasing. 

His Knights are lazing about around him when he hears the commotion just outside their ward. Baze gets to his feet by his side as does Luke. Chirrut begins to pray quietly under his breath from where he sits. Jyn and Cassian stand and step forward, alert. 

There’s shouting and the sound of something being thrown against the wall. 

Rey comes bursting in, a nervous looking Finn behind her. She freezes at the sight before her. Kylo stares back in surprise, datapad in his lap.

“So, it’s true?” Rey asks aloud, tremulous. She catches sight of her master. “How can you help him? After what he did? He killed his own father!” 

“Rey, it’s not what you think-” Luke objects. She ignores her master’s protests and levels her gaze on Kylo. Her enemy. 

“You.” she snarls, and makes to move towards him, wielding her staff. 

Everyone freezes at the sound of a lightsaber being unsheathed. Jyn stands there, with Kylo’s red blade extended. It crackles and spits malevolently between them. 

Luke has no idea how Jyn got Kylo’s blade, he had confiscated it himself and last he knew it was sitting in a locked drawer in his quarters. 

“You are not to touch him.” Jyn says, the quiet words sharply enunciated. The Force is preternaturally still around Jyn, ready for whatever she commands of it. 

Kylo watches from behind. 

It’s in this moment that he comes to fully understand. They are the Knights of Ren and they are his. But he is theirs, too. His Knight stands between him and danger, burning blade at her side. This is truth. 

Rey stops at the sight of it. Finn is there, hand wrapped around her upper arm, tugging her back. “Rey, come on.” he’s saying, urging her towards the door. Rey resists, dark eyes narrowed in furious anger, showing teeth. 

Jyn meets her gaze and swivels the blade in an arrogant bit of showboating, but the look in her eye is deadly. 

The Knights stand upright, fanned out behind her, ready. There is no doubt as to who would win this fight and Rey is drastically outnumbered. Luke, her master, is just standing there with his hands uselessly at his side. 

Rey lets herself be pulled back out of the room. 

“Perhaps it would be best if you go and speak to your student.” Chirrut recommends gently, if pointedly, at the Jedi Master. 

Luke flees, abruptly reminded that the people in this room were once terrifying assassins for the First Order and that they’d been very good at it. 

That, and he’s got a lot of explaining to do with his young charge. 

Jyn sheathes the saber and tucks it away so that it vanishes somewhere on her person. They return to where they had been sitting, as if they had never been interrupted. 

The Knights of Ren are his, this is truth - and he is theirs. Kylo learns in that moment that if someone causes him pain - the Rogue will protect him from harm. Whatever the cost.

“Thank you.” Kylo says, voice cracking.

Jyn, never one for emotional scenes, pats his ankle and returns to arguing with Cassian over blaster configurations. 

But Kylo doesn’t forget. 

**

Then comes the day where they are finally released from the base. There are a lot of Resistance fighters that are unhappy about it, scared or angry, and it keeps everyone on edge, tense. 

His Knights never being from his side is a fairly strong deterrent for those seeking revenge or recompense. 

That and the Droid, K-2SO – who is somehow even _more_ sarcastic after his reprogramming and refers to Kylo only as ’Kylo Ren, the man who murdered me’ (Kylo would argue that one can’t be murdered and still talking, but Cassian always looks so pleased when K2 mouths off) –sent to medical the last man who tried to ambush Kylo with a bruised body and broken pride. K2 insists that if anyone were to kill Kylo it really should be him, it would only be fair and if anyone else were to manage the feat it would be an affront to everything K2 stands for. 

Kylo fights his smile and nods somberly, promising that his death should occur most definitely at the droid’s hands. They make vague plans about Kylo’s ultimate demise and then seal it with a handshake. 

**

Kylo knows they could leave the base, even if they'd have to fight their way out. With how many Resistance fighters that would be more than happy to see the last of them, they might let them go with a cheer. Yet, Kylo stays. 

The Resistance saved the lives of his Knights and Kylo does not forget. His duty is to his Knights and he pays back his debts. When the Resistance has need of him, he goes. He tries, at first, to do it on his own. He is the debtor, not his Knights. But they refuse to be separated and he is too selfish to demand it of them. 

The Knights have served for so long, before Snoke and after, that they fall into running missions for the Resistance with ease. It’s not so different from their work with the Rebellion, even if it was briefer for some than for others of the Rogue One crew. It’s even more similar to their work as the Knights for the First Order. An elite unit running black op missions. They’re just slightly nicer missions now. Rescuing instead of subduing, aiding instead of ailing. The mechanics are pretty much the same, regardless.

They’re too well oiled of a machine, too interconnected to try and get anyone up to speed to integrate fully with the team, and thankfully, Leia doesn’t even bother to try. They work together. The Knights of Ren. Rogue One. Occasionally they’ll work alongside others, but a member of their own is never left behind or replaced. All seven of them get sent out, or none of them do.

Still, together they provide enough intel, run enough missions, risk enough for the sake of the Resistance, that tensions, over time, gradually die down. Kylo finds himself alarmingly content, and the others share the sentiment, even as they remain at war with the First Order.

It’s not peace, no. Not yet. _But_ , Kylo thinks, as he looks over as his Knights, laughing and bright in the Force, _it could be._ It could be.


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final bit- the epilogue

They are outside, the six of them together with K2, and the sky stretches blue and wide above them. They sit on an outcropping of rocks that are up the hill from the encampment. K2 has switched off into standby mode, but has turned to get the optimal amount of sunlight warming his metal chassis. Food is laid out on a blanket at their feet. 

The distant noise of an X Wing engine starting up and the unobtrusive sound of chatter from people milling around the base below them is the only disruption of the peaceful silence around them. 

He looks over at the Resistance base, at the symbol of everything he had once fought against. His friends watch from behind. Jyn touches his shoulder and he brings his focus back to them, smiling. 

They are warm and unharmed and free because not even Snoke, in all his power and knowledge, could gain mastery over them, not completely. 

He turns his head, looks over at his Knights and asks Cassian in a solemn voice. 

“Tell me, where are you from?” 

Cassian smiles, wry and content. “There was light, bright and searing.” he says and his eyes close and his face tilts up as if he can feel it against his skin. Jyn watches him with wolf-cat eyes. “Then there was darkness. That is where I am from.” Cassian finishes. 

Jyn reaches out and threads their fingers together. 

“Tell me,” he asks Jyn, continuing the thread, old words new in his mouth. “Where did you learn to fire a blaster like that?” 

“I learned with the hands of a child.” she tells him, and he reaches out for her free hand, linking them, a bittersweet understanding between the three of them. 

“Tell me, where did you learn of the Force?” he asks Chirrut from where the guardian sits back, his staff loose in his grip. 

The man smiles, serene. “The Force is everywhere, in everything. I learned of the Force in the dust and in the rain.” 

He now directs his attention to Baze, who is grumpily avoiding their gaze, arms folded. 

“Tell me, how did you meet the Seer?”

Baze takes an inordinate amount of time before saying. “All is as the Force wills it.” 

And Chirrut’s grin nearly can’t be contained on his face it’s so wide. “Oh, shut it.” Baze grouses, but a hint of a smile can be found under his beard. 

“Tell me, what is your name?” he asks the final person in their little group. 

“My name is Bodhi Rook.” he beams, the single deviation in their scripted conversation. “And I’m the pilot.” 

“Yes, you are.” Jyn praises and he flushes at her words, pleased. Together, they fill up the empty spaces. 

It’s new, different from what they had before, but the Force hums pleasantly between them the same. It has taken him many, many years for him to fully understand. 

They are not alone. He is theirs and they are his. Whatever comes next, they will face it together. 

And this is truth. 

**

_we are good people_

_and we’ve suffered enough_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed reading as much as I did writing this this weird little idea. I hope to write more stories to this verse, and depending on what goes on in Ep8 maybe even a sequel? 
> 
> As always, many thanks and may the force be with you


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